1. Field of the Invention
This invention pertains to control units for automatic pinsetting units used in bowling alleys and in particular to units which can electrically control the operation of a large number of such pinsetters from a single, microprossor-controlled console. The system of the present invention additionally provides data about the utilization of the pinsetters which enables an operator system console to calculate and display their billable use and provide the console operator with the total customer charges for the use of one or more lanes of a bowling alley and the pinsetters associated therewith, as well as provide the bowling alley owner with cumulative usage and finanical information about the pinsetters in his alley.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The status of automatic pinsetters for bowling alleys is well documented in the prior patent art, as is the art for their electrical control. Likewise, electronic scoring and bowling game counting is well known in the prior patent art. Some recent examples may be found in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,974,483; 3,931,966; and 3,931,499. Automatic timekeeping and accounting units are also known to the prior patent art as in U.S. Pat. No. 3,943,526. To the best of the inventor's knowledge, however, no system for bowling alleys exists which performs either or both of the functions performed by the system of the present invention.
While many accounting systems exist for controlling the financial accounting of the use of lanes and pinsetters in bowling alleys, most such systems are manually operated and can be fallible in use. They are usually dependent upon the integrity of the personnel on duty at the control desk of the bowling alley.
The present invention is devoted to the solution of two problems presently existing in the operation of a bowling alley. The first problem is consolidating electrical controls for a plurality of lanes in a bowling alley to facilitate operational control thereof and to cope with electrical emergencies. The second problem is adequate and accurate accounting for the use of each lane and pinsetter to provide fair billing to the customer, and cumulative financial information for the owner of a bowling alley to obtain a reasonable return on his investment.
A bowling alley has a number of automatic pinsetters, usually ranging from ten to one hundred, each serving one bowling lane, installed at the rear of the alley. In some bowling alleys the pinsetters may be supplied by different manufacturers or may be varying models. Each pinsetter has a number of electrical wires which are, in present use, used to turn the machine on or off, to count the number of cycles it goes through, to cause it to cycle when necessary, to inform the operator when a cycle has been made and sometimes to indicate malfunctions. Depending on the make and model of the individual pinsetter, as many as five to ten individual wires are run from each pinsetter at the rear of a bowling lane to the control desk of the bowling alley terminating in a large console through which the operator controls each lane and pinsetter individually. Normally all these wires from the pinsetters to the operator console are bundled together in an enormous cable terminating at the operator console. The operator console has discrete switches for each lane with lights and counters to provide the status of each lane and its pinsetter. From this discrete data, displayed individually for each lane, the attendant on duty must determine the bill for the use of each lane and for pinsetter. Since the present systems provide for no cumulative records, it is impossible for an owner to determine whether or not the attendant on duty has billed all the usage of the lanes and pinsetters.
The present invention addresses itself to both of these problems by providing a microprocessor controlled device which accumulates data about pinsetter cycles and time of use, consolidate their electrical signals changes it to digital data which it transmits over a serial data bus and then computes the billable charges from such data as well as cumulative usage and financial data. This system provides a command decoder in close proximity to each pinsetter to receive its electrical inputs. The command decoder has the same lines and performs the same functions as each individual wire from the pinsetter, but each command decoder is interconnected from pinsetter to pinsetter in a daisy chain manner to a two- wire data bus which runs from the rear of the bowling alley to the system control desk at the front of the alley. The combination of the command decoders and the data bus eliminates a vast amount of wireing between the pinsetters and the system control console and enables the system control console to be extremely simplified. The system control console can also issue commands over the same two-wire data bus in a multiplex fashion to each one of the command decoders. Thus, the transmission of data to and from the operator is system command console and the individual pinsetters is accomplished with a maximum of efficiency and a minimum of error and omission. The microprocessor of the system control unit uses a read-only memory to retain its program and a random access memory to store and retrieve data about the individual pinsetters, and rates of charge for purposes of electrical and financial control.